Batari walks in echoes and shadows

The large wolf sniffed through the darkness. She had found her way into these caves from the shore, seeking to be out of the open and having no fear for the darkness. When she had entered she had heard footfalls all around her and growled in response. When her own growl came resounding back at her, it had not taken the wolf long to learn the concept of an echo. The scaled island had not been a place to encounter such a sound often. So it was unfamiliar to her. Batari did not like what she did not understand, and so had decided that she would make herself understand these echoes.

She stalked in the caves listening to her own footsteps on the stones of the cave floor. The occasional soft splash of her foot padding through a puddle on the slick rocks would whisper back and forth and as she continued to move, she grew used to their sounds. In these dark caves, down the winding paths, open chambers, and tight twisting tunnels, she had yet to encounter another living thing. The solitude was nice, but the lack of things to hunt was frustrating. Batari had decided it was time to leave these caves; but soon found that to be less simple than it seemed. Twice she found the scent of fresh and blowing wind, and twice she found that its source was a hole high overhead and unreachable to her.

The savage and usually ill-tempered wolf was growing cranky. She growled in ambient frustration and the cave growled back using her voice. Batari was not amused at being mocked by a cave. When she was thwarted by yet another skylight, in her search for an exit, Batari decided she would do her best to follow her own scent backwards, and turned to find her trail.

In that brief pause, as she caught her own scent, Batari heard footsteps, when she was not moving. Someone else was in these caves, she was not alone. Batari wondered if it was a predator who called this place as its den, or prey that had gotten turned about as she had. Batari knew that moving would send echoes, and alert what it was to her position, so she sat still. The sounds were getting closer, but the echoing made it impossible for her to know from where. She was standing in the only patch of moonlight, surrounded by darkness in an open and empty chamber that had several passages leading away.

Batari waited patiently, feet squared, hackles raised, tail tucked, jaw lowered, ears flattened, and teeth bared. She might not have much time to react but she would not let prey or predator catch her sitting and unprepared. The sound grew nearer, and Batari could take the waiting no more. She would use the echoes against this unknown other creature, and draw it out.

?Batari can hear your steps!? she barked, her own voice echoing back at her even louder than she. ?Let Batari see you or Batari will hunt you! Batari will not be stopped by these caves! ? Her demands stated in her simple savage way, she waited for them to be met, or she would act on her words.